


Reflection

by kscribbles



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Introspection, Light Angst, Oral Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26865298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kscribbles/pseuds/kscribbles
Summary: This man wanted her with his whole being. It was wonderful, and a little overwhelming.
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 14
Kudos: 74





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a while since I've written about our dude, the duplicate Tenth Doctor. That needed changing. Many thanks, once again, to [nonelvis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nonelvis/pseuds/nonelvis), who supports, encourages, and wrangles my damned commas like a pro.

She was sat at her dressing table, wrapped in a large, fluffy towel, getting ready for the party later that night. A long dress in a deep midnight blue, covered in beads that sparkled like night stars, hung from her wardrobe door. Her mum had insisted it was perfect, even though the dress cost twice the monthly rent of their flat in their old universe, and that was only one of the things that made Rose uncomfortable about tonight. 

A month since the stars came back, and it was time, everyone said, for a formal celebration. So a charitable gala was being held, her mother at the helm. “Stars” were the informal theme of the night (a bit on the nose, Rose thought) hosted by the public-facing arm of the Tyler family business, and so the whole family was expected to attend.

There was a tap on her bedroom door, and then the Doctor’s voice, calling her name. She adjusted her towel to make sure it was secure and she was decent, then told him he could come in. She swiveled toward the door as he did, and her breath nearly caught. _God_ , but he looked amazing. He cut a devastating image In his finely tailored tux, his hair done to the exact perfect amount of spiky-soft shine, and top shirt button undone and his bowtie not yet tied, hanging loosely around his neck. 

Oh, she really shouldn’t let her gaze linger, let him see her looking.

She swiveled away, back to face her mirror, but not before the sudden jolt of desire sent her mind racing back to the other day. 

Three days ago they’d snogged again, the only time since the beach when he’d arrived in this universe. She hadn’t planned for it or meant for it to happen, or even known it was going to happen until it did. She wasn’t even sure who had started it. He had clutched her so tightly, like on the beach, and it had felt so good and right and exactly what she needed, craved. And for a few precious moments, she’d forgotten everything. Until she heard him make a sort of desperate whimper in his throat, a sound she’d never heard before from _him_ , her other Doctor, and it all had come rushing back. She’d felt immediately guilty. For comparing them, for thinking of the other, and almost like she was somehow cheating on them _both_. It was a lot. It was too much. She’d pushed him away. And even though she regretted the words before she’d even said them, she said she couldn’t. Not now, not yet.

He’d uttered a sort of bewildered, _Okay_ , ran a hand through his rumpled hair, and walked away. They hadn’t spoken about it since. Just pretended it had never happened.

She cleared her throat, mentally shoving aside the memory, and picked up her eyeliner, so she’d have something to do with her hands.

“Hi,” she said, to her own reflection, carefully beginning to apply her eye makeup. 

“Hello,” he said, coming to stand behind her, so close she could feel the heat off him against her bare shoulder. Well, if they were pretending… they’d never been much for personal space. Totally normal, for them. 

“Your mum told me to tell you they’d gone ahead. They needed to be early to, I dunno, check on things. I wasn’t really listening. But she said not to be late.”

“Oh, I wanted to see Tony in his little tuxedo.”

He smiled. “Pretty adorable, yeah. You’ll see him when we get there.”

She blew a hair out of her face when it got in the way of her trying to apply eyeliner. Absently, it seemed, the Doctor reached out and moved the hair for her when it tried to resettle in the same spot. He met her eyes in the mirror briefly, then dropped his hand and moved away. She thought he might leave then, having delivered his message and perhaps crossed another tiny intimacy line. But instead, she saw in the reflection, he just unbuttoned his jacket and settled on her bed, on his back, with his hands laced behind his head. 

She stared a moment, again feeling memories swim around her. Past crashing into present, mingling into one impossible moment. Or what seemed impossible a month ago. That was also something he used to do a lot back on the TARDIS, chat to her from her bed, while she got ready for the day’s adventuring. She’d usually been clothed then, though, except for those last few times, right before her mornings on the TARDIS had abruptly ended forever. And there she was again, comparing them.

“If we get there,” she said, grabbing a makeup brush. Her mum would kill them if they didn’t turn up, but she really didn’t feel like smiling till her face hurt and dancing for photographers.

“You don’t want to go?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“Not really. Of course we’ll go, but it just feels silly to celebrate. We save the word every other week, it feels like. Twice since the stars came back.”

“Yeah, but they don’t know that.” He waved a hand in the air, gesturing at all the people out there, the normal people who for a time could not ignore the spectacular, frightening world beyond their little planet. 

“There will be cameras,” she warned.

“I don’t mind. I look dashing.”

She snorted a little half-laugh. He wasn’t wrong. Still, she wanted him to be prepared for his first true public appearance. And if she didn’t know quite where they stood, then what would the press come up with? “They’ll wonder about you.”

“I’ll help with the headlines. How’s ‘Intergalactic Man of Mystery’?”

“Doctor,” she said, putting down her makeup and turning around to face him properly. “I’m serious. They’ll assume you’re… with me. That we’re together. Are you ready for that?”

“You mean since I’m not? Since we’re not?” He wasn’t joking anymore. He was, in fact, looking stiffly at the ceiling. And he sounded… not hurt, exactly. Sad, defeated maybe. 

She moved from her perch at her dressing table to sit down near him on the bed, not quite sure what she should do or say, but she knew she didn’t want to cause him more pain.

“It’s fine, Rose,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t care what anyone thinks. When have I ever?” He turned toward her, moving as if he were going to get up and leave, and she placed a hand gently on his arm, stilling him.

“Don’t go,” she said, looking at his face directly for the first time since he’d come in here. His eyes were wide, like he was feeling exposed, a look that was both familiar and new all at once. And she could tell he was confused as well. To stay, to go, to push, to let go, to wait, to rush.

They were so alike, she and this Doctor. 

He took a breath to speak and she leaned forward and gently placed her lips over his, deliberately this time. It seemed like the right thing to do.

There was just a moment’s hesitation before he responded to her kiss, and then he pulled her into his arms, threw himself into it fully, like on the beach, like a few days ago, and somewhat unlike the careful, restrained passion of the Time Lord he’d once been. This man wanted her with his whole being, _needed_ her, the other had said, and that included physically. It was wonderful, it was sexy as hell, it was a little overwhelming.

Regretfully, she let the kiss end and she pulled away to lie next to him, before she allowed herself to get lost in him, before she ripped him out of his lovely tux, already getting rumpled. 

He seemed only curious that she’d stopped him, again. This wasn’t fair to him. They _were_ together. She never wanted to be with anyone but the Doctor. Never had, almost since the day she’d met him, two bodies ago. It was just...

“It’s just that I…” she began, not wanting to lose this moment, feeling raw, wanting to be honest, but she couldn’t find the words. 

“Can’t stop thinking of him,” he finished for her.

She blinked at him, and maybe her mouth hung open a bit. How did he understand it so clearly? Seconds after she’d decided to be honest, she thought maybe it would be kinder to deny it, but before she could decide how to respond, he spoke again.

“So think of him.” 

“What?”

“Compare us. There are bound to be differences. Things that remind you I’m not him. Not exactly.”

“I thought you’d be… I dunno. Jealous.”

“Oh, I’m jealous,” he said. “But I’m also here. He’s not. If it’s what you need to be all right with _this_ me, then do it. I’m not going anywhere.”

She was stunned. His words sounded kind and patient, spoken softly, and he tenderly reached out to run his hand along her face as he spoke, but there was an undercurrent to them. A small hint of rage. Flashes of which she’d seen occasionally these past few weeks. He _was_ angry, maybe not at her exactly, maybe not even right at this moment, but at the circumstances he hadn’t quite come to terms with yet either. He’d lost his home, his heart, his best friend, and the woman he loved was thinking about someone else every time they kissed. 

“You’re different too, you know,” he said quietly.

“I… am?”

“Of course. I suppose you didn’t fundamentally and irreversibly alter your genetic makeup or anything, but it’s been years. Years in a completely different universe. Years saving the world without me getting in the way.”

Years she’d have given anything to have spent with him. He must know that. She hadn’t changed _that_ much. 

“But I’m the same person.”

“Yes.” He smiled then, enigmatic, and wry, and painfully like the old Doctor. “So am I.”

And there it was. He was the same person. He also wasn’t. Because that was life with the Doctor—completely mad. 

It was what she wanted now, no matter if it wasn’t what she’d imagined while working on the Dimension Cannon project to get back to him.

It was almost simple. And getting overwhelmed–maybe it wasn’t so bad. She kissed him again, because she wanted to. 

He returned her kiss for just a moment and then gently pushed her back. He shook his head as if to clear it, ran his hand through his hair and sat up.

“Don’t go,” she said again, sitting up as well. And maybe she was the one sounding needy just then.

“Oh, I don’t want to, believe me, Rose. But you’ve got to get dressed.”

“Do I?” 

She reached for the top of her somehow still secure towel to loosen it, but he stopped her. 

He made a regretful sounding groan. “We really don’t have time. And the irony of that isn’t lost on me.”

She wondered if he cared about that at all, being late to the gala, or if he was being considerate, giving her an out, giving _her_ more time. 

She thought of the years she and the Doctor had spent on the TARDIS, on no one’s schedule but their own, outside of time for as long as they wanted to be. She thought too of all the time they’d wasted there, when they could have been naked in bed together a thousand times instead of just a few. Her memories of his hands on her, of him moving inside her, were as alive and vibrant as this Doctor, right next to her. 

She wanted that again, right now, but he was right. There wasn’t time to do it properly. Though maybe they could... there _was_ something she never got a chance to do back then. And if she never had, then she’d not be able to compare full Time Lord with part-human. A new memory, with her new new new Doctor.

“Maybe _we_ don’t have time,” she said, and dropped her towel from around her chest anyway, then retucked it around her waist. 

He stared, agape. Well, that much hadn’t changed. The Doctor liked tits. “R–Rose?”

She pulled his hands toward her chest, and encouraged him to touch her, which he did with a careful sort of reverence. Like she might disappear, or pull away again. 

She leaned in again, and he tried to capture her lips, but instead she brought her mouth to just below his ear, placing a single warm kiss there. 

“Think you can be quick?” she whispered.

“Can I…? What?”

By way of explanation, she slid a hand down his torso to land in his lap, finding him half-hard already. She lightly stroked him through his trousers, and he made a little squeak she realized she found endearing instead of distracting. 

“Oh, erm.”

She took that as an affirmative answer, and gently brushed aside his hands and pushed him back so he was again laying flat. With little ceremony, she undid his trousers.

“Rose, you don’t—the par—” he tried.

He abruptly stopped attempting to speak when she reached into his pants to touch him directly. 

For a moment she watched, fascinated, as his cock swelled in her hand when she manoeuvred him free of his clothes, as if some part of her expected he would somehow look different than before. But when his deep groan sounded from the head of the bed, she pushed any thoughts of before from her mind. Mindful of the short time they had, she ran her hand along him a few times, and when he was completely hard, she scooted herself down the bed.

She glanced up at him before she set herself to her task, taking just a moment to savour the view. His eyes were shut tight, his head thrown back, elongating his neck. For the second time this evening she was blown away by how ridiculously good he looked. He was _beautiful_. And so sexy she was tempted to reconsider her plan and throw a leg over and ride him hard. Instead, she slid her lips over the head of his cock.

He made a sound like trying and failing to say a word beginning with F, and she wholeheartedly agreed. She went down as far as she could and pulled back up, letting her hand trace the path of her mouth. And there was that exact same sound she heard when snogging him the other day. A sound of pure need that shot straight to her core, physically and otherwise. 

Oh she could get used to this–having the Doctor at her mercy. And she loved how he felt, the taste of him, the heat, this solid, tangible, _real_ feel of him in her mouth, after years of bittersweet fantasizing. She set a quick rhythm, for both their sakes, because the temptation to sate her own needs was growing by the second. When a hand slipped into her hair almost hesitantly, it was _her_ turn to groan. 

She could feel and hear that he was getting close—he was louder than he used to be ( _damn_ , she’d done it again)—and she threw a bit of flourish in it, swirling her tongue at the top, twisting her hand, trying to make this special for him too, and not _just_ getting him off quickly. 

“Wait wait wait,” he said suddenly, tugging at her hair just a little.

She pulled off and looked at him curiously. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Honestly, nothing. Just…” He budged up on the bed so he was in more of a sitting position. “I wanted to see...”

She smiled, shifted her position as well, and got back to work. Only this time she could glance up at him while she did so, and the adoration beside the _heat_ she saw in his gaze made her weak. She had to close her eyes so she wouldn’t falter her rhythm. 

It was only a matter of a few seconds before he tightened his hand in her hair again. “I’m—Ro—” he stammered, trying to warn her.

She took him in as deeply as she could and then on a long groan, he was coming. She looked at him again as she swallowed, but his eyes were shut tight once more. It didn’t make the sight any less breathtaking. 

When he’d finished, she carefully lifted off, making sure not to make a mess of his clothing. Gathering her towel, she daintily wiped her mouth and stood.

He met her eyes with a lazy, happy smile, and again the urge to pounce on him returned.

Instead she dragged herself back to her dressing table. Feeling his eyes on her, she fixed her hair quickly and then grabbed her underthings and went to clean herself up a bit in the bathroom.

Behind the closed door, she leaned against the counter, catching her breath and examining her reflection. Makeup surprisingly intact, especially since she hadn’t gotten around to putting on her lippy yet, though she was still quite flushed. Nothing for that now. She swiftly slipped into her bra and knickers, the satin and lace feeling rough on her feverish skin.

When she returned from the loo, she found him in much the same position, flipping through the book she had at her bedside. Except his trousers were done up, his tux impeccable, and his hair was once again perfect. Which meant he’d probably sat at her mirror and maybe used her brush, and that’s when it really hit her.

This was their life now. They were _sharing_ it. That’s how her Doctors were different. He _wasn’t_ going anywhere. And she wasn’t just along for the ride. 

“What?” he asked, catching her smile.

“Nothing. Just thinking.”

“About…?” he ventured cautiously, likely remembering their conversation earlier. 

“You,” she said honestly. She turned to face the mirrored door of her wardrobe. “Help me with my dress?”

He leaped off the bed with incredible speed. Once again he was standing right behind her and another shudder of intense want went through her. She didn’t try to push it aside this time, even though it couldn’t be satisfied now..

“It would be a shame to cover up these lovely knickers,” he said in a low voice, running a hand along the small of her back and up her spine as she stepped into and pulled her dress up over her hips. “This bra as well.”

He settled her dress straps on her shoulders and she swallowed, trying and failing to suppress the shiver that went through her. The other Doctor was rarely deliberately suave. She didn’t know where it came from—whether it said something about his human half, or if he thought he had to try to seduce her—but she didn’t mind it at all.

He pulled up her zip and smoothed the dress over her sides and settled his hands lightly at her hips.

“Play your cards right,” she said, resisting the urge to lean into him, “and you can help me out of my dress later.” 

She heard him take a deep breath and then he stepped to the side, buttoned his jacket, and started tying his bow-tie in the mirror. 

“You don’t… we don’t have to rush,” he said, looking steadfastly at his own hands, “if you’re still… figuring things out.”

Seconds ago he was running his fingers over her and talking sexy; five minutes ago he came in her mouth. Now he was saying he didn’t mind waiting, for her. This Doctor had an inconsistency she found intriguing. It was familiar, but had a different… flavour than he used to have. It was hard to keep up. He was, in turns, confident and insecure, and the switch between the two could be a little dizzying.

His hands fumbled knotting his tie. Were they shaking? 

“Here. Let me.” She gently turned him towards her and guided him to lean against her dressing table so she could tie the tie for him.

She noticed for the first time that the bow-tie was subtly patterned to match her dress. That’d be her mum’s handiwork. Someone was certainly ready for them to appear as a couple. She should probably thank her later.

“I’ll be figuring things out for a while, Doctor,” she said gently. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want you.”

“The other day, though, and earlier…?” he asked. 

When she’d pushed him away. When she’d admitted she couldn’t stop thinking about his duplicate on the TARDIS. She supposed she hadn’t come out and said, ‘Yes, I accept you and I love _you_ regardless,’ but she had hoped snogging and then going down on him might have got her point across. 

“And a few minutes ago when I had my mouth on you...?” she pointed out.

He ducked his head. “I thought perhaps you were being kind.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Rose,” he said, grabbing her hands and stilling her movements, just as she finished with the tie. He met her eyes, and the unadulterated vulnerability in his shook her. He took a breath to speak, but then held it and exhaled without saying a thing. His expression cleared and he dropped her hands.

It seemed they were both going to have to move past their ingrained pattern of _not_ saying things that needed saying. A tough habit to break.

He straightened and smoothed his tux one more time, and headed towards her bedroom door. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going to be late.”

She was almost set to argue. To say to hell with the party and we are going to talk about this all right now. But it didn’t need to happen right this second. It was a night for change, for the beginnings of new adventures. Maybe neither of them were ready for that conversation. And they had dancing to do. 

She quickly applied her lipstick, threw it in her evening bag, stepped into her heels, and joined him. She held out her hand to him and he took it. Together they descended the stairs and headed for the car waiting for them outside. 

In the hall on their way out, he caught sight of them in the mirror and paused, appreciating their reflections, done up to the nines.

“We look quite the pair don’t we,” he said. “Rose Tyler and the Doctor.” 

“Yeah,” she agreed. “We always did.” 

FIN


End file.
